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Monday 25 August 2014

Book Blitz & Giveaway - The Frost of Springtime by Rachel L. Demeter





The Frost of Springtime
by Rachel L. Demeter
Historical Romance
Date Published: February 14, 2014
Publisher: Black Lyon Publishing, LLC

Book Summary:
To rescue her was to rescue his own soul.

On a cold Parisian night, Vicomte Aleksender de Lefèvre forges an everlasting bond with a broken girl during her darkest hour, rescuing her from a life of abuse and misery. Tormented by his own demons, he finds his first bit of solace in sheltering little Sofia Rose.

But when Aleksender is drawn away by the Franco-Prussian war, the seasons pass. And in that long year, Sofia matures into a stunning young woman—a dancer with an understanding of devotion and redemption far surpassing her age.

Alongside his closest friend, Aleksender returns home to find that “home” is gone, replaced by revolution, bloodshed, betrayal—and a love always out of reach. Scarred inside and out, he’s thrust into a world of sensuality and violence—a world in which all his hours have now grown dark, and where only Sofia might bring an end to the winter in his heart.

Inspired by the 1871 Paris Commune, The Frost of Springtime is a poignant tale of revolution, redemption, and the healing power of love.


THE FROST OF SPRINGTIME KINDLE EDITION IS FREE ON AMAZON AUGUST 25-29!!

Buy Links:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble

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Book Of The Week: Fear Of The Dark by Emily Godhand


Fear Of The Dark
Genre: Paranormal / Horror

Book Summary (from Wattpad):
All Annie Walker wanted to do was find her friend Kerri and go back to a normal college life, but after a chance encounter with a mysterious private investigator, it's not only her leisurely life in Denver that's in danger. 

As Annie starts to see ghosts and glimpses of things that should not be, she wonders if she has gone mad, or if there just might have been something to the PI's mention of the "Otherworld" between life and death.
---------------------------------

When an amateur sleuth goes missing, V Park, a former missing persons detective turned paranormal investigator, finds herself forced to turn to her Otherworld contacts to help her hunt down the young woman. But her search dredges up more than she expected when she finds ghosts and dark cultists as well.

Click here to read the book.

Sunday 24 August 2014

Blog Tour Excerpt & Giveaway - Always Rayne by Sierra Avalon




Always Rayne
by Sierra Avalon
Genre: New Adult Romance
Date Published: June 21, 2014

Book Summary:
Would you spend ten days traveling the country with someone you despised if he promised to pay off your student loans?

Recent college graduate, Harper Leigh, can barely make ends meet working as the books editor for a new online entertainment magazine, Chatter. With $85,000 of student loan debt about to go into repayment, she has no idea how she’ll get by.

Just when she thinks things couldn’t get worse, Harper’s boss decides to embed her in the North American tour for the hot rock band, Always Rayne. Ten days on the road with the band for her to get an exclusive story. But Harper’s a homebody and the last thing she wants to do is go on the road with a rock band. And she definitely doesn’t want to spend ten days with the notorious bad boy and band front man, Nic Rayne.

When Nic proves to be too much for Harper to handle and she threatens to quit the assignment, Nic decides to sweeten the pot. If she stays with the tour for all ten days, he’ll pay off all of her student loan debt….but there’s one small catch.

Harper also has to sleep in his bed every night.


Buy Links:
Amazon ¦ Smashwords

Book Spotlight & Giveaway - Everville Series by Roy Huff

Attention all scifi-fantasy lovers, be sure to join other Everville fans on FacebookAmazonGoodreads, and Twitter. The paperback and hardback versions are also now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all other major online book stores.


Everville: The First Pillar
by Roy Huff

Book Description:
Owen Sage is the emblematic college freshman at Easton Falls University. With all the worries about his first year in college, he was not prepared for what would happen next. His way of life was flipped upside down when he mysteriously crossed into another dimension, into the beautiful land of Everville. His excitement was abruptly halted when he discovered that there was a darkness forged against both the natural world, which he knew well, and the new land which he discovered, Everville. He must devise a plan to save both worlds while joining forces with the race of Fron and The Keepers, whom both harbor hidden secrets he must learn in order to gain power over the evil that dwells in The Other In Between. With a race against time to save both worlds, his short time at Easton Falls did not quite prepare him for the evil, dark forces he must fight in order to conquer The Other In Between.

Buy Links:
Amazon

Saturday 23 August 2014

Book Blast & Giveaway - The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich by Marcia Lynn McClure

secret bliss
The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich
by Marcia Lynn McClure

Synopsis:
“Oh! Do link arms with me, Calliope,” Blanche whispered, her brown eyes widening with apprehension. She took Calliope’s arm, tightly linking it with her own. “The old Mulholland house still gives me the willies every time I walk past it. I hate to think on what might have gone on inside. It’s truly terrifyin’!”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Blanche,” Calliope said, feigning calm. “Poor Prudence’s lunacy…it’s sad. And besides, her fiendish acts were not committed inside the house. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just…it’s just a sad, empty building.” Calliope Ipswich felt the hypocrite, however, as an uncomfortable shiver of residual dread and unease shuttered down her spine, More than six months had passed since the All Hollow’s Eve when the dangerous state of Prudence Mulholland’s fracturing mind had been revealed to the townsfolk of Meadowlark Lake. And now, each time Calliope thought of poor Prudence and her family, not only did her heart ache for their family’s unhappy lot but a chill of lingering horror rippled through her being. In truth, at times Calliope wondered if it had all been simply a bad dream—a nightmare. But it hadn’t. It really had happened—all of it.



Buy Links:

Cover Reveal - ARRGH! by Stacey Campbell

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We're so excited to share the cover of ARRGH! by Stacey Campbell, a middle grade fantasy adventure. This book releases September 24th, 2014. 

Description:
Forced to remain silent after being kidnapped by pirates Christopher must find a way to save an innocent merchant ship’s captain and his daughter from the evil grasp of Captain Redblade proving that friendship and family are worth fighting for no matter the costs.

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Buy Links:

BOTW Nominations - Week 67

And the Book Of The Week Nominations are:

Click on the book covers to sample the works.

Almost True (YA Romance / Sci-Fi)


Fear Of The Dark (Paranormal / Horror)


First Kiss & Broken Promises (YA Romance)


Which book would you title the Book Of The Week?

Friday 22 August 2014

Blog Tour Character Bios & Giveaway - Tortured Souls by Kimber Leigh Wheaton



Tortured Souls
The Orion Circle #1
by Kimber Leigh Wheaton
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Release Date: June 29, 2014
Publisher: Sea Dragon Press

Book Summary:
Sometimes Rest in Peace isn't an option.

Kacie Ramsey sees ghosts—and it's ruining her life. Her mother left, her father blames her, and no matter how hard she tries, she can't keep the ghosts away. Now a new power has emerged. Nightly visions of grisly murders and a relentless predator draw her to the brink of insanity.

When the phantom appears at a party, Kacie's longtime crush, Logan, saves her. He invites her to join the Orion Circle, a group of supernatural hunters with chapters in schools all over the country. Through the Circle, Kacie learns to embrace her spiritual powers, and for the first time in her life she feels in control rather than a victim.

But the Foxblood Demon will not give up so easily. A demented serial killer in life who trapped the souls of the thirteen children he murdered, imprisoning them within the walls of his mansion. Now in death, he plots his return while drawing power from the pure souls of the children. He recognizes something in Kacie he's never seen before—a medium powerful enough to provide a vessel for his tainted soul.

Kacie can't ignore the tortured souls of the children crying out to her every night. With Logan at her side, she will fight the Foxblood Demon. But can they banish this powerful phantom, or will Kacie lose not only her body, but her eternal soul to the monster.

Buy Links:

Book Blitz & Giveaway - Come Back To Texas by K.K. Hendin



Come Back To Texas
(Twelve Beats In A Bar #1)
by K.K. Hendin
Publication Date: August 18th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult

Synopsis:
Everyone thought we’d be the ones who made it through high school. The ones who’d get married and stay married forever. The example of how young love can work.

We thought so, too.
Too bad life had other plans.

It’s been three years since Hayley and Nate broke each other’s hearts. Three years, and a lot has changed. Hayley’s a freshman in Bushwick University, and the only things keeping her sane are stress baking, and her a cappella group, Twelve Beats in a Bar.

Nate’s a Marine, stationed in Afghanistan. The only thing that’s keeping him sane is the last picture he has of him and Hayley, and the hope that maybe when the hell of deployment is over, he can find her again and apologize.

One explosion will change everything.

When a bomb kills all of Nate’s unit, leaving him missing a leg and eyesight in one eye, he’s sent back home to Texas.Texas, where he loved Hayley more than he could possibly imagine ever loving anyone else.

With seemingly endless amounts of free time and needing something to distract himself, Nate starts making YouTube videos, imploring Hayley to come back to him, and come back to Texas.

Hayley’s life is wrapped around the Beats, making sure she doesn’t flunk out of biology class, and babysitting Ohio’s smallest monster, Brandon. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she misses Nate more than anything.

It’s too bad she doesn’t know just how much he misses her, too…

Buy Links:

Cover Reveal - Blue Diamond: The Razor's Edge by P.S. Bartlett

GMTA PUBLISHING/LIBERTINE PRESS IS SO VERY HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THE COVER REVEAL OF AUTHOR, P.S. BARTLETT'S NEWEST NOVEL!


SYNOPSIS:

Ivory Shepard didn't want to be a pirate when she grew up but she didn't plan on being orphaned and alone at thirteen with her three cousins either. 

After a Spanish raid in Charles Towne left them with nothing, Ivory held her cousins together, trained them to fight for their lives and led them to a life of quiet refuge on the banks of the Ashley River. Out of reach of the hands of unscrupulous men, they found life on the farm a tolerable substitute for the traditional alternatives life would force onto them—until the night the pirates showed up. 

Setting foot on that first pirate ship was nothing compared to the life of freedom and adventure awaiting them, once Ivory and the girls were through playing nice. Only one man believes he can stop her and he won't need a ship full of guns to do it. 

If it were only that easy…

BE SURE TO PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY ON AMAZON!

Amazon US ¦ IN ¦ UK ¦ DE ¦ FR
ES ¦ IT ¦ JP ¦ BR ¦ CA ¦ MX ¦ AU

Bookvie: The Calling - out August 29, 2014 (USA)


Who's in it:
Susan Sarandon, Gil Bellows, Ellen Burstyn

What's it all about (book blurb from Goodreads):
There were thirteen crime-scene pictures. Dead faces set in grimaces and shouts. Faces howling, whistling, moaning, crying, hissing. Hazel pinned them to the wall and stood back. It was a silent opera of ghosts.

Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef has lived all her days in the small town of Port Dundas and is now making her way toward retirement with something less than grace. Hobbled by a bad back and a dependence on painkillers, and feeling blindsided by divorce after nearly four decades of marriage, sixty-one-year-old Hazel has only the constructive criticism of her old goat of a mother and her own sharp tongue to buoy her. But when a terminally ill Port Dundas woman is gruesomely murdered in her own home, Hazel and her understaffed department must spring to life. And as one terminally ill victim after another is found—their bodies drained of blood, their mouths sculpted into strange shapes—Hazel finds herself tracking a truly terrifying serial killer across the country while everything she was barely holding together begins to spin out of control.

Through the cacophony of her bickering staff, her unsupportive superiors, a clamoring press, the town’s rumor mill, and her own nagging doubts, Hazel can sense the dead trying to call out. But what secret do they have to share? And will she hear it before it’s too late?

In The Calling, Inger Ash Wolfe brings a compelling new voice and an irresistible new heroine to the mystery world.

The Calling Official Trailer #1


Movie Stills:







Thursday 21 August 2014

Blog Tour Excerpt & Giveaway - Forget Me Not by Shawn Martin



Forget Me Not
Shadowflesh Series
Book 2
by Shawn Martin

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Publisher: Vinspire Publishing
Date of Publication: March 31, 2014
Number of pages: 308
Word Count: 73,500
Cover Artist: Elaina Lee

Book Description:
Fortune has smiled on seventeen year old Aileen McCormick ever since Addison came back into her life, giving her the love she has so desperately longed for.  That is, until a mysterious man slithers across her path and slips a spellbinding cameo around her neck.  The cameo holds more than just the image of an enchantress who hungers for souls.  It possesses a curse that strangles away every memory Aileen has of Addison.

Addison, a three hundred year old fugitive from the netherworld, recognizes the wretched woman inside the cameo and the curse she has cast on his unsuspecting love.  The enchanted cameo has but one purpose:  to torment Aileen with hints of love she can no longer recall.

Aileen cannot escape the deadly cameo.  She runs for her life with the curse only a breath away.  If she truly wants her memory back, the enchantress is all too willing to restore it.  It will cost her, though.  Cost her everything.

Buy Links:
Amazon ¦ Paperback ¦ BN ¦ Google Play ¦ Kobo



Excerpt from Forget Me Not

I couldn’t remember the last time I had been afraid of the dark.  It seemed like a lifetime ago, when shadows and demons consumed me at night, when the end of the world was but a breath away.  That was all before I met Addison.
From the very moment I literally fell into his arms, I had fallen hopelessly in love with him.  Hopelessly, carelessly, eternally in love with him.  And he loved me back.
Addison Wake had become my entire life, my reason for living.  I breathed in his love and exhaled his name.  My heart beat a passionate rhythm to which only he marched.  He danced into my dreams, stealing me away into the stars at the witching hour.  Since he had come back to me we had been inseparable.
The last amber leaves of autumn waved goodbye to the worst and best year of my life.  The year I lost my home, my friends, everything I thought I needed to live.  The year I discovered a grandmother I hardly knew.  The year I found new friends.  The year I fell in love.
The calendar gloated that Christmas was less than a month away, but who cared?  I looked forward to the first day of winter.  Or rather the longest night of the year.  Ever since finding out Santa was just a figment of my parents’ imagination, I didn’t have much use for the yuletide.  But I had always loved that long and wonderful night.  Addison had already set a date for that night, promising to take me to an air show in the day and onto the rooftop at night to teach me the constellations.
It was kind of embarrassing, but I had never really learned the stars.  Sure, I could spot the Big Dipper and hardly ever mistook the moon for a comet.  But that was the extent of my celestial knowledge.  Most of my time had been spent looking down rather than up, and I regretted that.  Just one more regret in the long list I had been working on in my seventeen years.  But all that was changing, and Addison was helping me one regret at a time.
To say I appreciated everything he had done for me would be an understatement.  He taught me how to drive a stick.  He trusted me with his deepest, darkest secrets.  He saved my life.  He fell in love with me, maybe even more than I had fallen in love with him.  If that was possible.
Mere words could do no justice for how I felt about Addison.  But that didn’t stop me from trying to tell him, or show him.  I poured my heart out into haiku almost daily.  I swirled his initials into the thighs of my worn jeans in three colors of permanent ink.  I learned to say “I love you” in twenty-one languages.
My most recent declaration of love cost me an entire paycheck.  I purchased a star.  Not the Hollywood kind starlets walked across in stilettos.  An actual star, in outer space, where no man has boldly gone before.
Bonnie Fay and Nicola had completely different reactions when I confessed what I had done.  Bonnie Fay wrinkled her nose and squinted at me, forcing the kind of smile that told me I was lame.  “Sounds kinda hokey,” she had said in her southern drawl.  “Sugar, if you’re gonna tease him with something he can’t have, don’t let it be a star.”
Nicola, the polar opposite to everything calm and conforming, had a completely different reaction.  She ached a sigh, crossed her hands over her heart, and fell backwards onto my bed.  “That is just so…”  She took a breath and clicked the heals of her combat boots.  I prayed she’d say something other than “hokey.”  “So… romantic.”  Then she wiped away a hint of her sentimentality before it had the chance to smear her dark eye make-up.  She had spent too long applying deadly Goth to have it ruined by a girly tear.
Yes, I bought my boyfriend a star.  It was a little star – I didn’t make that much money – cleverly hidden in the Scorpius constellation.  The website informed me the little speck could be seen near the horizon using a telescope the size of a small skyscraper.  But the heavenly body, now and forever known as “Addison Wake,” was indeed there.  It was my gift to him, a little piece of eternity that would smile down upon us every night until the stars all went out.
Okay, it was a little hokey.
But what could I have given to Addison Wake?  He wasn’t exactly like the other boys at Redcliff High.  To be perfectly clear, he was nothing at all like anyone on this mortal world.  Addison was a phantom, a fugitive from the netherworld, casually walking among the living as shadowflesh.  He willed his dark, mysterious ether into the tall, lean embodiment of perfection.  An immortal soul, yet vulnerable shadowflesh.
And no, I didn’t need my head examined… or maybe I did.
Addison was completely wrong for me, completely wrong for any living, breathing girl who had a fondness for staying alive.  The more I knew we shouldn’t be together, the more I was drawn to him.  Like a knot, the harder a person tried to pull it apart the tighter it got.
To show my love for Addison, I had to think of something as unique, something as ageless as he.  Haiku hadn’t cut it.  And it wasn’t like I could burn him a CD of my favorite music and expect it to mean anything in a year, or a decade, or a century.  But a star, it would be forever.
And when that long and wonderful night finally came and Addison showed me the constellations, I would surprise him with his star, pointing to the part of the sky where the tiny speck was supposed to be.
I had no idea how he would react.  Maybe he’d shrug or look at me as if I had lost my mind.  Or maybe he’d arch one eyebrow higher than the other over his smoky blue eyes and kiss me.  It would be cold, December nights get that way, so he would undoubtedly drape his leather flight jacket over my shoulders and wrap me in his strong arms, and I would kiss him back like I had never kissed him before, like I would never kiss him again.  And perhaps that would be the night.  The night.
I no longer feared the darkness.  As a matter of fact, I looked forward it.  The longest, darkest night of the year waited for me, and that should have been my happily ever after.  But fate can be a funny, cruel thing.


About the Author
Shawn Martin calls Springfield, Missouri, home.  After graduating from Missouri State University with majors in Economics and Political Science, he bounced around the Midwest only to end up right where he started.

His day (and night) job is being a firefighter.  Aside from rescuing cats in trees and removing burnt pot roasts from ovens, he spends his time finding the hardest way to do the simplest of things.  The rest of his time is spent weaving words into another installment in the Shadowflesh Series.  Visit www.shadowflesh.com for a look into the author and his work.

Author Links:


***GIVEAWAY***

10 print or ebook copies of the book – winner’s choice (Print US Shipping Only).

10 bookmarks (ebook marks available, print bookmarks US Shipping Only).


Blog Tour Organised by:

Book Blitz & Giveaway - Double Negative by C. Lee McKenzie



Double Negative
by C. Lee McKenzie 
Publisher: Evernight Teen
Publication Date: July 25th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Synopsis:
“My life was going, going, gone, and I hadn’t been laid yet. I couldn’t go into the slammer before that happened.” Hutch McQueen.

Sixteen-year-old Hutchinson McQueen is trapped between an abusive mother and an absentee father. Shackled by poor vision and poor reading skills, he squeaks through classes with his talent for eavesdropping and memorizing what he hears. After another suspension from school and suffering through one of his mother’s violent attacks, he escapes to a friend’s house that turns out to be a meth lab. The lab is raided and Hutch lands in juvenile detention. When the court sentences him to six months in a new juvenile program, he meets a teacher with Alzheimer’s who will change his life and hers.

Buy Links:



GUEST POST

Three Things YA Fiction Writers Should Avoid


If you’re not writing historical fiction, there are three things YA fiction writers should avoid.

Including Identifiable Technology:

I wrote a story a few year ago called The Princess of Las Pulgas, and by the time I’d finished it, and it was ready to submit to publishers, I had some major changes to make. One big change had to do with technology.

In the original story, I had a flip phone—remember those? They were the latest in cell phone technology a few years ago, but not in 2010 when Princess came out.

This writer can’t keep up with the changes that Intel or Apple or whoever, comes up with. They spew new software and new devices faster than a high powered automatic.

I now try to make my techie references as generic as possible and hope those won’t be outdated before publication.

Using Current Slang:

Slang comes and goes about as fast as techie stuff, so finding something fresh, but not soon to be on its way out is difficult to impossible. I often approximate slang with what I call “loosely correct” grammar, or I just stay away from it entirely. It doesn’t necessarily add to character. In fact, I sometimes think it detracts. Still I do resort to some when it suits the character and I can’t come up with another way to express something.

Including Well-known Celebrities:

I took a big chance in Double Negative when I mentioned Lady Gaga. I knew I shouldn’t use a well-known celebrity, but I did anyway because the scene and the elderly character of Maggie begged for it. Here’s a snippet to give you an idea of how I trapped myself and probably will date my book within a few years.

The scene takes place at Thanksgiving dinner. Dixson Wang’s mom is Chinese and doesn’t speak English well. Hutch is the pov character.

I look over at Wang who’s leaning close to his mother. I guess he’s telling her what people are saying because sometimes he translates what she says to him. “Mom says the peas are delicious,” or “My mom has never tasted this kind of salad, but she likes it very much.”
Moss keeps shoveling food into his mouth as if his elbow’s set to a timer, and Meeker’s already taking seconds. Like me, they don’t talk, but they look around at the others.
That’s when Maggie says, “We should talk about sex or Lady Gaga. The boys are bored.”
Heather chokes and grabs her water glass.
Maggie asks Liz, “What is it about that singer that makes her so popular in the gay community?”
Dixson Wang isn’t translating anymore.

I hope Lady Gaga stays in style for a while.


About the Author
In my other life--the one before I began writing for teens and younger readers--I was a teacher and administrator at California State University, San Jose. My field of Linguistics and Inter-cultural Communication has carried me to a lot of places in the world to explore different cultures and languages. I can say, “Where’s the toilet?” and “I’m lost!” in at least five languages and two dialects. Go ahead. Pat me on the back.

My idea of a perfect day is one or all of the following: starting a new novel, finishing writing a blockbuster novel, hiking on a misty morning trail in the Santa Cruz Mountains, saying Namaste after a great yoga practice, sipping a cappuccino topped at a bustling cafĂ©, reading in front of a fire with snow outside, swimming in an ocean someplace.

I've just set out my perfect life. Day after day after day.

Author Links:


***GIVEAWAY***

One ebook copy (ePub, Mobi or PDF) of Double Negative up for grabs.

Ends September 12th (Midnight GMT).

Prize will be sent out after September 20th.


Book Blitz Organised by:

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Blog Tour Spotlight & Excerpt - Finding Keepers by Kristi Strong




Finding Keepers
by Kristi Strong
Genre: YA Contemporary
Release Date: July 30th 2014

Synopsis via Goodreads:
Starting a new life is never easy, but Alyssa Doe has turned it into an art form. Abandoned by her parents at age ten, six years in foster care has taught Alyssa how to get through life the hard way.

Now sixteen and growing desperate for a stable life, Alyssa finds herself puzzled by her newest keeper, twenty-five year old Jessica Sona. A feisty woman who does not accept no for an answer, Jessica’s insistence and passion for safety, family, and unconditional love begin to break down Alyssa’s walls and bring her hope, a dangerous emotion.

Can such a thing as family and love exist for a girl whose birth name is Doe, or will Alyssa be forever left finding keepers?

Buy Links: